Same Sex Marriage

Understanding Morality

CCC 8003-9

Term Paper

Same-sex Marriage

Name: TAM Kin Yee (4115932)

Instructor: James. A Rice

Submission Date: 2 November, 2016

Same-sex marriage is generally known as the marriage between two people of the same sex. It has become an increasingly controversial world issue and has raised huge public concern on whether it should be legalized. In only a few countries it has been a part of their everyday life, for example in England, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands where the first same-sex marriage took place. So it seems same-sex marriage is still not commonly accepted in many other countries like China. If someone who is sexually attracted to people of the same sex, perhaps homosexual marriage would be a good idea to give them recognition and honor. However, many people disagree. This essay will show that same-sex marriage should be legalized worldwide with the support of some main philosophical moral theories that would deal with the topic. It is because all people have the freedom to marriage including the homosexual couples. In addition, the legalization brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number.

Homosexual couples have the liberty to decide on their own marriage that government should not restrict. John Stuart Mill^[1], in his essay, On Liberty, states “the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong’’ (Mill, chapter 1, Para.12). What he is trying to say is that people should be free to do whatever they want so long as their actions do not bring any harm to others, even if an individual sees a certain lifestyle that would do harm to the doer, they still have the freedom to do so, provided that the actions do not affect others. In the case of same-sex marriage, there are no statistics to show that homosexuals would cause harm to the community. A study^[2] published in the journal Social Science Quarterly shows nothing was found to prove same-sex marriage would adversely affect areas like divorce, abortion rate and birth rate etc. so the argument relating to ‘harm’ was not reasonably held. As it is not held, prohibiting same-sex couples from gaining access to the same rights as that of the opposite-sex couples, the government is just preventing freedom. Moreover, according to Mill, the government should not intervene to prohibit an action of a person even though it violates the morals of society. The state is only legitimate to use coercion to restrict human behavior when it harms others. Therefore the government should not prohibit same-sex marriage merely on the ground that it is contrary to the morals of society. But in fact, homosexuals are the same as that of the heterosexuals that they do not bring harm to society, so what is the point only to restrict them from marrying? Aren’t we just denying them a fundamental freedom?